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Summer Reading 2018: August Prize Books

Special Feature

Summer Reading 2018: August Prize Books

Summer will be here before you know it! At Bookreporter.com, this means it's time for us to share some great summer book picks with our Summer Reading Contests and Feature. We will be hosting a series of 24-hour contests for these titles on select days through August 24th, so you will have to check the site each day to see the featured prize book and enter to win. We also will be sending a special newsletter to announce the day's title, which you can sign up for here.

On the night of August 11, 1956, in the East Hampton hamlet of Springs, NY, Jackson Pollock crashed his car into a tree, killing himself. Pollock, the world-renowned abstract painter and notorious alcoholic, also killed his 24-year-old passenger, Edith Metzger, in the crash. Or did he? Metzger’s autopsy reveals that she was already dead before the crash. Murdered? Perhaps. This shocking disclosure draws vacationing Detective Juanita Diaz and her husband, Captain Brian Fitzgerald of the NYPD, into a homicide investigation that implicates famous members of East Hampton’s art community, including Pollock himself.

A private plane has crashed on Desolation Mountain in a remote part of the Iron Lake Reservation, which kills a United States senator and most of her family. Cork O’Connor is joined by his son, Stephen, and a few Ojibwe men to sift through the smoldering wreckage when the FBI arrives and quickly assumes control of the situation. As he initiates his own probe, Cork stumbles upon a familiar face in Bo Thorson, a private security consultant whose unnamed clients have hired him to quietly look into the cause of the crash. The men agree to join forces in their investigation, but soon Cork begins to wonder if Thorson’s loyalties lie elsewhere.

Nicole Hennessy’s life revolves around her Zen practice at the Boston Zendo, seeking solace in the tenets of Buddhism to the chagrin of her Irish Catholic family. After a decade of grueling spiritual practice under her Master’s tutelage, living on a shoestring budget as a shop clerk, Nicole has become dangerously entangled with her mentor. As Nicole confronts her past --- a drug-fueled year spent fleeing her family’s loaded silences and guilt-laden "Our Fathers" --- and reinvents herself in New York City, her Master’s intoxicating voice pursues her, an electrifying whisper on the other end of the phone. Somehow, he knows everything.

At one point or another, we’ve all been asked to name five people, living or dead, with whom we’d like to have dinner. Why do we choose the people we do? And what if that dinner was to actually happen? These are the questions Rebecca Serle contends with in her novel, THE DINNER LIST. When Sabrina arrives at her 30th birthday dinner, she finds at the table not just her best friend, but also three significant people from her past…and Audrey Hepburn. As the appetizers are served, wine poured and dinner table conversation begins, it becomes clear that there’s a reason these six people have been gathered together.

One night three years ago, the Tanner sisters disappeared: 15-year-old Cass and 17-year-old Emma. Three years later, Cass returns, without her sister Emma. Her story is one of kidnapping and betrayal, of a mysterious island where the two were held. But to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Abby Winter, something doesn't add up. Looking deep within this dysfunctional family, Dr. Winter uncovers a life where boundaries were violated and a narcissistic parent held sway. And where one sister's return might just be the beginning of the crime.

May 1968: In Harlem, a church janitor finds an innocent newborn in a basket. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, an elusive serial killer prowls slumbering families, leaving a trail of blood and a twisted calling card. October 1987: Amelia Crenshaw embarks on a search to discover the truth about the birth mother who abandoned her, never suspecting she’s on a collision course with a killer. Detective Stockton Barnes, a brash young NYPD detective, trails a missing millionaire whose disappearance is rooted in a nightmare that began 20 years ago. The past returns with a brutal vengeance as a masked predator picks off victims whose fates intertwine with a notorious murder spree solved back in ’68. Or was it?

Rogers Stout has the gambler’s gifts --- a titanic brain, an uncanny ability to read people, and a risk-taker’s daring. As an apathetic high school student who loves baseball but lacks a 90-mph fastball, he knows that the game does not begin until the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. But his life needs direction. Everything changes the summer he is invited into the boisterous environment of an investment bank’s trading room, and to a gambling hall dive where he immediately wins big at poker, capturing the attention of his co-workers with his card-playing skills.

For Clara Darden, Grand Central Terminal is the stepping stone to her future. It is 1928, and she is teaching at the lauded Grand Central School of Art. But Clara and her bohemian friends have no idea that they'll soon be blindsided by the looming Great Depression. Nearly 50 years later, the terminal has declined almost as sharply as Virginia Clay's life. Recently divorced, Virginia has just accepted a job in the information booth to support herself and her college-age daughter. But when Virginia discovers a striking watercolor hidden under the dust, she embarks on a quest to find the artist, drawing her deep into the mystery of Clara Darden, the famed 1920s illustrator who disappeared from history in 1931.

For Rose Enright, enrolling in a prestigious New England boarding school is the opportunity of a lifetime. But for Rose’s vulnerable twin sister Bel, Odell Academy is a place of temptation and danger. When Bel falls in with a crowd of wild rich kids who pressure her into hazing Rose, the sisters’ relationship is shattered. Rose turns to her dorm mother, Sarah Donovan, for advice. But Bel turns to Sarah’s husband Heath, a charismatic and ambitious teacher. Is Heath trying to help Bel or take advantage of her? In a world of privilege, seduction and manipulation, only one sister will live to tell the truth.

Pregnant, alone and riddled with guilt, 23-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly gives up her budding career as a nurse and ends her engagement to the love of her life. She turns to the baby’s father for help and agrees to marry him, moving to the small, rural town of Hickory, North Carolina. Tess’ new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who shows her no affection, and she quickly realizes she’s trapped in a strange and loveless marriage with no way out. When a sudden polio epidemic strikes Hickory, the townspeople band together to build a polio hospital. As Tess works to save the lives of her patients, can she untangle the truth behind her husband’s mysterious behavior and find the love --- and the life --- she was meant to have?

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than 100 words per day, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial. This can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her. Soon women are not permitted to hold jobs. Girls are not taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke 16,000 words each day, but now women have only 100 to make themselves heard. For herself, her daughter and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.

Vote in Our Poll

Are you planning to give books as gifts this holiday season? Please check all that apply.

Word of Mouth

Tell us about the books you’ve finished reading with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars. During the contest period from November 16th to November 30th at noon ET, three lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win a copy of TARGET: ALEX CROSS by James Patterson and WITNESS: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom by Ariel Burger.

Sounding Off on Audio

Tell us about the audiobooks you’ve finished listening to with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for both the performance and the content. During the contest period from November 1st to December 3rd at noon ET, two lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win the audio versions of Louise Penny's KINGDOM OF THE BLIND: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, read by Robert Bathurst, and Barbara Taylor Bradford's MASTER OF HIS FATE, read by Joan Walker.

Bookreporter.com Bets On

Books On Screen

November's Books on Screen roundup includes the feature filmsThe Girl in the Spider's Web, The Grinch and Boy Erased; the season four premiere of "Outlander" on Starz, along with the debut of two miniseries --- HBO's "My Brilliant Friend" and AMC's "The Little Drummer Girl" --- plus three Hallmark made-for-TV holiday movies, among them Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe; and the DVD releases of Crazy Rich Asians, Bel Canto, The Children Act and Juliet, Naked.